


Men will always find new ways to wage war

by beans_on_toast



Series: Whumptober 2020 [3]
Category: The Old Guard (Comics), The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Aftermath of Violence, Blood and Gore, Canon Temporary Character Death, Gen, Joe & Quynh are best friends, Pre-Canon, We Die Like Men, Whumptober 2020, very stylistic descriptions of violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-04
Updated: 2020-10-04
Packaged: 2021-03-07 15:55:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,088
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26820238
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beans_on_toast/pseuds/beans_on_toast
Summary: Yusuf struggles to string his thoughts together in an orderly fashion. Every time he manages to capture one in his fingers, a sudden movement by Quỳnh scatters it to the four winds. She presses upon his side and he moans out a string of Arabic that is, undoubtedly, gibberish. Quỳnh responds in her mother tongue. Yusuf blinks slowly at her. He has begun to consider himself at least conversational, but in this state he’s not certain he can pin down the words.(Or the gang comes across a new invention - the fire lance)
Relationships: Andy | Andromache of Scythia & Quynh | Noriko, Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani & Quynh | Noriko, Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova
Series: Whumptober 2020 [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1952257
Comments: 4
Kudos: 62





	Men will always find new ways to wage war

**Author's Note:**

> Whumptober prompt #3 - My Way or the Highway. 
> 
> Bit of all three mini prompts - manhandled, forced to their knees and held at gunpoint
> 
> Though I did think 'Wouldn't it be cool if it was about a historic encounter with guns?' So here we are!
> 
> Trigger warning - descriptions of wounds & the aftermath of violence, mentions of violence, blood and gore.

Yusuf struggles to string his thoughts together in an orderly fashion. Every time he manages to capture one in his fingers, a sudden movement by Quỳnh scatters it to the four winds. She presses upon his side and he moans out a string of Arabic that is, undoubtedly, gibberish. Quỳnh responds in her mother tongue. Yusuf blinks slowly at her. He has begun to consider himself at least conversational, but in this state he’s not certain he can pin down the words. 

‘What are you saying?’ He manages to gasp out in Arabic. Or some words to that effect. 

‘I said to hang on little brother.’ She replies in the same. Her face is drawn. He wishes to smooth the tightness in her brow but once again the pain steals his thoughts. His breath rattles wetly in his lungs and she swears. He feels the cold trail of metal up his stomach, across his chest. She flicks the cut fabric of his tunic aside. Her hands are on him again, pressing, pressing, _pressing._

His vision goes dark again and in the thunder of his roaring heart he thinks he can hear Nicolò call his name.

_Quỳnh had woken him early that morning. When they travelled, they bundled together in a pile; Andromache and Nicolò on the outside, Quỳnh and Yusuf in the middle. She had pressed her cold hands to Yusuf’s back and whispered in his ear._

_‘Come little brother, let us hunt.’ Yusuf was loath to leave their bed rolls, his love warm and content in his arms. Andromache cracked open one eye, huffing out some words in a dead language as Quỳnh kissed her goodbye. He unwound himself from Nicolò. He moved away._

_But his arms won’t move. He shifts and pain seizes his chest._

He wakes to Quỳnh’s face. She holds his face in her palms. He cannot place the expression on her face. She looks, for the first time since he met her, her age. She looks _ancient._ She is whispering to him. His side is still inflamed. The brush of his tunic against his skin is agony.

His stomach twists. He feels bile rise in his throat. Why does he still hurt? He tries to take deep, soothing breaths, but his lungs will not fill. Quỳnh is checking his lungs, her hands slippery with blood. _His blood._ The thought is dizzying. Something solid, there, shoved through his skin and down into his lungs. Something sharp and small, but suddenly so large he cannot think around it. Quỳnh’s knife is in her hand again. Warmth blossoms over his skin. He is cold, so cold. 

She pulls out a thin slice of bamboo and holds it up between them. He draws air, but again he cannot. He is no longer pinned, he is drowning.

This time, as the darkness rushes forth, he calls out for Nicolò. His throat is too filled with blood.

_There were men. Soldiers, trained, alert. Yusuf had been so careless. His hands were tied. No, held. Held behind him. They crowd over him. Quỳnh was speaking. He knew the language but not as well as Quỳnh. What was she saying? He was on his knees. The men were louder, too loud. He cannot hear above the rush of his own heart._

The images are fracturing, falling apart, cracking. Like the pond ice four winters back. He was cold, so cold. He _is_ cold.

_Flashes now. Quỳnh moving. The light on her daggers. A man pulls back. A weapon. Quỳnh. Quỳnh!_

_The sound of thunder, a flash of fire. His side. His whole body was aflame. Quỳnh shouted. Moved. The sound of metal through flesh._

_Hands on his face. Hands on his body. His name._

‘That was stupid Yusuf.’ She admonishes. ‘You should not have done that.’ He feels raw. The broken, twirling madness of his mind throws up the image of a lion’s kill he had come across decades ago. The poor beast had been shredded, ravaged. He feels that way now. Torn apart. 

He forces his mind to grasp onto her words. Focus on anything but the sensation of his broken body and the fear that rises in him. His lungs are clear. His breathing is easier. He still tastes the blood in his mouth, but it no longer chokes him.

‘What was that thing?’ He asks, his tongue heavy and unwieldy. 

Quỳnh rattles off something in Chinese. He doesn’t try to understand her. His grip on the language is weak and he is tired. ‘What’s the word? A spear. With fire. Fire lance, yes. I have not seen one for many years.’ She is speaking Greek now. Yusuf, miraculously, can hold the words in his head and they do not filter out like sand. 

‘Men will always find new ways to wage war.’ Quỳnh does not respond. Yusuf wonders if he has spoken aloud at all. Then Quỳnh wipes gently, oh so gently, along his side. His mind is once again blinded by white, hot agony. It pulls a moan from his throat. But he pulls his thoughts back to him quicker. The pain seems less. The pain is less.

‘Quỳnh.’ She studies him for a moment. Her cold hand slides under his neck and lifts him slightly. 

There is… He is… _his chest_. Torn apart. Ravaged. The cut, pulled edges of his skin show black and burned. Pock marks bleed along his side. More delicate, glittering skewers of bamboo. Quỳnh pinches around a shoot and draws it from him. It is needle thin but draws such an ache from him. There is so much, too much. He wishes for Nicolò.

_One day we stop healing and we don’t know why._

Quỳnh grips the nape of his neck, calms his heart. They wait. They watch. She wipes again at his skin. He watches in horrified amazement as the metal shrapnel in his chest wiggles free, rolling to the dirt. The bamboo skewers are harder. Quỳnh helps them along as they press from his skin. The burning, itching sensation of his skin crawling along his chest and stomach makes him feel ill. He drops his head, closing his eyes. Quỳnh presses her forehead against his own. He is unsure whose tears wet his face and he does not care.

‘It is not your time, little brother. It is not your time.’ She breathes into his mouth. It fills his lungs deeply, for this first in a lifetime. Many lifetimes.

And there will be many more. It is not his time.

**Author's Note:**

> Today's fic brought to you by the joyous use of _italics_. The Author regrets nothing.
> 
> Please let me know if I've missed any tags off!
> 
> Come say hi at @hyper-fixate at tumblr!


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